Author Topic: Video Teardown & Experiements with LeCroy's 100GHz, 240GS/s Scope (Read 33198 times)

Hugoneus · « **on:** February 10, 2015, 09:54:46 am »

Here is a close look and teardown (yes! teardown!) of LeCroy's 100GHz Scope. We also go in details of its operation, block diagrams and ASIC design challenges.

Watch the video here: [1 Hour & 35 Minutes]
http://youtu.be/U3w_EWgGQuk

More videos at The Signal Path:
http://www.TheSignalPath.com

vaualbus · « **Reply #1 on:** February 10, 2015, 10:34:45 am »

Just two word: Wow and fantastic.

Hugoneus · « **Reply #2 on:** February 10, 2015, 11:22:33 am »

Quote from: vaualbus on February 10, 2015, 10:34:45 am

Just two word: Wow and fantastic.

Glad that you liked it.

CosPhi · « **Reply #3 on:** February 10, 2015, 01:22:55 pm »

Thank's for this great video. Special the first part when the guy explained the frontend on the whiteboard.

Also the second part with the boards review. I was surprised to see at least 9 trimpots on the 100Gig board

The third parts with the running instrument was nice too. But as already HF stuff itself wouldn't confuse me sometimes ... now we have laser ... 194THz has to be a kind of infrared laser. I didn't know it is possible to shift the frequency for a laser that easy. I guess that would be an topic for an future Signalpath blog too. I did read lately an article about a laboratory where they push the data rate over fibre rate ... kind of sick.

The last part was nice to see too. I thought the factory (just assembling) would be bigger. And I was surprised about how much and long they test each unit. And I was surprised people don't wear ear protection.

Thank's a lot for this video.

EEVblog · « **Reply #4 on:** February 10, 2015, 01:44:56 pm »

Haven't watched it all through yet, but

Hugoneus · « **Reply #5 on:** February 10, 2015, 02:12:29 pm »

Quote from: EEVblog on February 10, 2015, 01:44:56 pm

Haven't watched it all through yet, but

Thanks Dave! Let me know what you think about it.

EEVblog · « **Reply #6 on:** February 10, 2015, 02:15:45 pm »

Was very kind of Lecroy to let you in to shoot all that too, and give access to the designer. They are obviously very proud of their products and capability.
BTW, Chris met Mr Lecroy the other week, and didn't even think to ask him onto the Amp Hour!

4cx10000 · « **Reply #7 on:** February 10, 2015, 02:27:16 pm »

WOW, like someone else wrote! Great video and thanks for asking all the questions which clarified things even more! Excellent and very interesting!

Hugoneus · « **Reply #8 on:** February 10, 2015, 02:41:19 pm »

Quote from: EEVblog on February 10, 2015, 02:15:45 pm

Was very kind of Lecroy to let you in to shoot all that too, and give access to the designer. They are obviously very proud of their products and capability.
BTW, Chris met Mr Lecroy the other week, and didn't even think to ask him onto the Amp Hour!

Doh!

nixfu · « **Reply #9 on:** February 10, 2015, 02:56:11 pm »

Getting ready to watch video now.

I assume this is done with using a very powerful ADC to simultaneously sample the entire DC-xGHz spectrum all at once in real time?

electr_peter · « **Reply #10 on:** February 10, 2015, 03:42:38 pm »

100GHz and 240GS/s - that is 1000 times more BW and 240 times faster sampling than 100MHz 1GS/s scope. It is a fantastic technological achievement. I hope they can achieve 1 THz BW one day - but it is getting harder and harder to climb in frequency.

On the other hand it is not 100GHz scope in all parameters - it is more like 33GHz trigger + 100GHz BW + fast sampling system. It lacks some capabilities over full BW if compared to 33GHz scopes. Still very useful for a niche applications.

Maybe there are experts on rigid/semi rigid coax cables in this forum? What do you think of internal cabling/setup on the front end? To me it seems that setup can be improved and made more integrated/compact. Sampling board looks very nicely laid out and clean in comparison.

Hugoneus · « **Reply #11 on:** February 10, 2015, 03:49:05 pm »

Quote from: electr_peter on February 10, 2015, 03:42:38 pm

100GHz and 240GS/s - that is 1000 times more BW and 240 times faster sampling than 100MHz 1GS/s scope. It is a fantastic technological achievement. I hope they can achieve 1 THz BW one day - but it is getting harder and harder to climb in frequency.
On the other hand it is not 100GHz scope in all parameters - it is more like 33GHz trigger + 100GHz BW + fast sampling system. It lacks some capabilities over full BW if compared to 33GHz scopes. Still very useful for a niche applications.
Maybe there are experts on rigid/semi rigid coax cables in this forum? What do you think of internal cabling/setup on the front end? To me it seems that setup can be improved and made more integrated/compact. Sampling board looks very nicely laid out and clean in comparison.

They have lots of room inside the unit so they have not gone through the trouble of making very crammed together cables. They use rigid cables where phase stability is critical and of course calibrate everything. The microwave switches are used for calibration and signal path switching. These portions are laid out like a spectrum analyzer.

jimon · « **Reply #12 on:** February 10, 2015, 04:38:26 pm »

Crazy & wow, hope more and more companies will provide edge tech for teardowns just as part of marketing campaigns

daqq · « **Reply #13 on:** February 10, 2015, 05:51:10 pm »

Wow!!! Thanks!

Wuerstchenhund · « **Reply #14 on:** February 10, 2015, 06:48:27 pm »

I also haven't had the time to watch all of it but yes, very well done!

I usually don't watch a lot video reviews, and quite frankly think that most of them are poor to crap. But your's really stand out. You're presenting very well, you're speaking clearly and fluent, the videos are well structured, and most of all you know your shit. I knew LeCroy made the right decision when they invited you took at their stuff.

The only thing I would have to criticize on your video is the segment where the scope theory was presented on the whiteboard. The audio level difference between you and the presenter was pretty large, which required turning the volume up to understand him (just barely), just to have you screaming at me one moment later

Maybe in such situation you could work with an external mic which is placed in the middle between yourself and the other presenter(s), which would provide an more equal audio level. There's also software that can equalize voice, which I think would be good for that segment.

But aside that, very well done! Hopefully they'll give you more stuff to review in the future!

SimonD · « **Reply #15 on:** February 10, 2015, 07:35:56 pm »

WOWWW !!!
absolutely impresive !
food for the eyes ... not for ordinary mortals!

BFX · « **Reply #16 on:** February 10, 2015, 09:12:11 pm »

hmm next piece of equipment for my hobby

I'll probably have to broken my ceramic piggy bank

PS: Good job Hugoneus

jimon · « **Reply #17 on:** February 10, 2015, 10:26:47 pm »

Watched, extremely nice

But mystery is still there - nobody showed how their best in the world (?) ASIC's looks like

I have a question, so looks like Keysight do ADC interleaving on their 63 GHz/160 GS/s scope, with super complicated time reference (and right tongue angle

) and LeCroy went for bandwidth splitting for some reason (easier to build ? more compact ?). So will it be possible for Keysight to use their interleaving approach if they will boost total ADC's up to 240+ GS/s ? Or interleaving approach is limited by some physical/engineering limitation ?

PS. Part when you tweak 194.050 THz to 194.100 THz is silly from marketing perspective IMHO, it's like showing "yay our scope can go from 0.0 to 0.1

"

rx8pilot · « **Reply #18 on:** February 10, 2015, 10:31:04 pm »

The only thing more impressive than the scope, is actually NEEDING a scope like that.

Very small market for a 7 figure ultra-exotic! Nuts.

vaualbus · « **Reply #19 on:** February 10, 2015, 10:33:23 pm »

Quote from: jimon on February 10, 2015, 10:26:47 pm

Watched, extremely nice But mystery is still there - nobody showed how their best in the world (?) ASIC's looks like

I have a question, so looks like Keysight do ADC interleaving on their 63 GHz/160 GS/s scope, with super complicated time reference (and right tongue angle ) and LeCroy went for bandwidth splitting for some reason (easier to build ? more compact ?). So will it be possible for Keysight to use their interleaving approach if they will boost total ADC's up to 240+ GS/s ? Or interleaving approach is limited by some physical/engineering limitation ?

PS. Part when you tweak 194.050 THz to 194.100 THz is silly from marketing perspective IMHO, it's like showing "yay our scope can go from 0.0 to 0.1 "

Ya I was wandering about agile also. But agilent use their real edge technology that unfortunally is not described in the servie manual.
So I think they do almost the same think, downconvert the signal and than send it to 2 of the 4 board to be digitazed.
Next time a tour at Agilent! when the next 63+Ghz scope will released. Ah Ah.

mikeselectricstuff · « **Reply #20 on:** February 10, 2015, 11:03:01 pm »

I was waiting for you to ask what the 20x100Ghz configuration would cost...

c4757p · « **Reply #21 on:** February 10, 2015, 11:04:48 pm »

Quote from: mikeselectricstuff on February 10, 2015, 11:03:01 pm

I was waiting for you to ask what the 20x100Ghz configuration would cost...

Can't. They haven't invented a number for it yet.

Hugoneus · « **Reply #22 on:** February 11, 2015, 12:20:17 am »

vaualbus, jimon,

Let me clarify a few things which you kindly brought up.

The Keysight 62GHz scope uses essentially the same technique for conversion. Their ReadEdge system is a diplexer, filter and dual-band down-converter. This can be inferred from their frequency planning and block diagrams, even though they don't directly mention it.

The two laser experiment is a very important test. (I was not going to let them get away with a cheesy test!) O0 When you beat two lasers together in a PD (in non-linear detection) you get a beat frequency which is the difference between the two tones (You also get the sum, but that is huge). So in this case we are first beating a 194THz laser with a 194.05THz laser which would produce an electrical tone at 50GHz. By increasing the second laser to 194.1THz, we produce an electrical tone at 100GHz! The scope then digitizes this electrical tone which is at the edge of its bandwidth. I hope this is more clear now.

w2aew · « **Reply #23 on:** February 11, 2015, 01:32:01 am »

Quote from: nixfu on February 10, 2015, 02:56:11 pm

Getting ready to watch video now.

I assume this is done with using a very powerful ADC to simultaneously sample the entire DC-xGHz spectrum all at once in real time?

No, as you'll see, it splits the signal into three bands, down converts the mid and upper bands, then samples each of these three paths with parallel 36GHz BW channels, and uses DSP to reassemble it all. Each 36GHz channel is 80GS/s which is formed by interleaving 5GS/s ADCs.

w2aew · « **Reply #24 on:** February 11, 2015, 01:35:11 am »

Quote from: jimon on February 10, 2015, 10:26:47 pm

Watched, extremely nice But mystery is still there - nobody showed how their best in the world (?) ASIC's looks like

I have a question, so looks like Keysight do ADC interleaving on their 63 GHz/160 GS/s scope, with super complicated time reference (and right tongue angle ) and LeCroy went for bandwidth splitting for some reason (easier to build ? more compact ?). So will it be possible for Keysight to use their interleaving approach if they will boost total ADC's up to 240+ GS/s ? Or interleaving approach is limited by some physical/engineering limitation ?

PS. Part when you tweak 194.050 THz to 194.100 THz is silly from marketing perspective IMHO, it's like showing "yay our scope can go from 0.0 to 0.1 "

Keysight also uses Frequency interleaving to get their 63 GHz real edge channel, for the same reason that LECroy does.


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Author Topic: Video Teardown & Experiements with LeCroy's 100GHz, 240GS/s Scope (Read 33198 times)

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